


Lifeline

by holyroller



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester's Birthday, M/M, Post-Canon, they are alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28955010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyroller/pseuds/holyroller
Summary: it's saturday night, cas is breathing deeply beside him, completely asleep, jack is probably watching TV in the dean-cave, and dean has been drifting in and out of sleep for the past 20 minutes when his phone buzzes to the tune of the Call Me Maybe song. it's the tone he'd set up for eileen because, well, she never calls. so, when she does call, it's usually an emergency flare that's followed up with an explanatory text.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is crossposted on tumblr [here ](https://acabsam.tumblr.com/post/641185999763931136/supernatural-season-16-episode-4-lifeline)
> 
> everything is lowercase for Aesthetic purposes. otherwise enjoy!

it's roughly 11 PM on january 23rd when dean gets a call from eileen. he'd been out of the bunker with jack and cas for nearly three days; they'd taken jack to an amusement park. something about never seeing one before which reminded dean the last time he'd ever been to one, he was three years old and didn't remember a thing. which was fine, except that jack had wanted to go to _six flags_. he'd said something about finding old commercials with a dancing old man and the closest one was in kentucky. naturally, this wasn't an issue with dean. he'd driven farther for less, but on the way back he'd begun to realize that as he got older, the drives took more out of him. 

they'd gotten back earlier that afternoon and had spent most of the day lounging around until the exhaustion got the better of them at around nine. well, except jack. who could have just driven back to kentucky if he wanted to. cas made sure he didn't want to. so, it's saturday night, cas is breathing deeply beside him, completely asleep, jack is probably watching TV in the dean-cave, and dean has been drifting in and out of sleep for the past 20 minutes when his phone buzzes to the tune of the Call Me Maybe song. it's the tone he'd set up for eileen because, well, she never calls. so, when she does call, it's usually an emergency flare that's followed up with an explanatory text. dean's eyes shoot awake as he watches the call miss and waits a second for eileen's message to come in. 

**dean, sam broke the tub. he can't get the hot water to stop running. SOS. please, my hair is disgustingly humid. his too.**

and dean laughs. it was an emergency, but the kind that didn't have him spiraling into a depression. that was... almost nice, he thinks. they have normal people problems now. he leans over to where cas is asleep beside him and cas' trained as well as dean is. he stirs awake with the movement and opens his eyes in a half-awake gesture.

“sam’s in trouble,” dean says with a smile. cas’ eyes shoot open, but dean’s demeanour doesn’t change, instead he follows up with, “he.. broke his bathtub somehow.”

cas squints. dean laughs some more and gets himself out of bed. he’s gotta find the little duffel bag that they’d dedicated to tools that didn’t include weapons of mass destruction. it shouldn’t be too hard to find. the last time they’d used it was when sam actually broke a door off its hinges. 

“i’m going back to sleep,” cas says, turning over as dean redresses. and dean laughs again. cas was grumpy when he was exhausted. it was endearing. 

it doesn’t take him too long to get ready to leave the bunker. he finds the duffel bag underneath the bathroom sink and before he knows it, he’s pulling out of the bunker’s vicinity in the impala and headed toward sam and eileen’s place. the issue with them is they live roughly 45 minutes away. he texts eileen back, letting her know he’s on his way. 

and dean thinks, as he drives over. that it’s his birthday tomorrow. well- he checks his phone, it’s basically his birthday. sunday january 24th, 2021. he didn’t think he’d live this long. he was the answer to the universe now, technically. 42. he looks down at his hands on the wheel. they’re worn. they’re the hands of a tired man who fought multiple apocalypses, multiple archangels, god himself. and won.

he takes a deep breath and thinks about sam. he loves his little brother more than he can ever explain. it’s unhealthy, probably, how much he’d done to save sam from everything. death, despair, sam himself that time he lost his soul. dean was there and willing to bleed for whatever sam needed. and he knew sam would always do the same. it was comforting. and even moreso now that they’d decided to take some time to really asses what was best for either of them. sam let himself want his apple pie life again. and it was the happiest day of dean’s life to see his little brother decorating the house he’d leased with eileen.

dean doesn’t hunt fulltime anymore. he’ll do an odd ghost job here and there, but mostly he mans the phones. he’s now FBI Supervisor Agent Harkness, police chief Richard Grayson, at cas’ request Texas Ranger Dean Swift, and at jack’s request Marlo Bridgers.it’s a living, he thinks. he still helps out other hunters and he passes off the bigger jobs to the younger people that’ve unfortunately ended up in the hunting life. 

mostly, though, he and cas have been making up for lost time. they go out on dates. _dates_ , like embarrassing 15 year olds. he’s taken cas to the movies, they’ve gone for walks at the mall. dean held cas’ hand under a tree and it was the most incredible thing in the world. 

it’s embarrassing, it’s enough to make himself blush at the memory of it, but it’s also _nice_ in that same breath. it brings him a sense of peace like he’s never fully properly known. because it’s about trust. and not trust in cas, not trust in himself, hell, the trust has nothing to do with either of them. it has to do with the fact that dean has finally let himself trust that things are going to be okay. that no matter what happens, he’s going to be okay.

and that’s what he thinks about when he’s sitting across from cas at the baskin robbins. that they’re safe. that things are okay. because they are, dean’s earned that much through his own tears and blood.

the sound of wind hitting the impala as he drives down the highway closer to sam and eileen is the melody to the memories of his life as it has been since they got rid of chuck and jack put god’s power back into the universe.

he pulls into the driveway of sam’s cookie cutter house. he’s in the middle of the driveway but dean doesn’t care and he knows neither sam nor eileen would care either. besides, the impala outshines the two normal cars they drive. he grabs the duffel bag and heads for the door, waiting for a second before the door clicks and he sees eileen in a crack in the door. he smiles at her.

“dean!” she says, visibly excited. dean smiles at her and waves, unsure why she’d be so excited that he’s here at midnight to fix her bathtub. she reaches out to grab his wrist and pull him into the house. she leads him through dark down the little hall that dean knows leads into the bathroom. dean notices there is no humidity in the house.

“eileen? is everything-” dean starts to ask when the lights flick on, blinding dean for a second before it clicks that it’s a party. it’s a party at midnight for him. 

he sees jody, donna, alex, claire and kaia. sam and bobby among several other hunters dean had come to know. it’s a full house, yet dean notices the lack of jack and cas. there’s a stack of presents in a corner behind the kitchen, a cake with a single candle on the table. claire is approaching him with a party hat in her hands and an evil look on her face. dean glances over at eileen, who’s beaming at him. she knows what she did. led zeppelin comes through a little speaker in the corner, not too loud, but loud enough that its ambiance music now. 

dean lets himself get wrapped in a hug from claire and then lets her put the hat on him before sam approaches him.

“this your idea?” dean asks. sam grins, but shakes his head.

“no, actually. i wanted to do it tomorrow morning. show up at the bunker with everyone, but, i know someone with worse intentions than me who said that tricking you into coming here at the moment of your birthday would be something you couldn’t see coming,” sam opens his arms and dean lets himself fall in. he hugs his little brother back and the emotions from earlier come back. he and sam were alive. dean’s greatest achievement in life was keeping sam alive and now here he was, reaping the benefits.

he goes through similar motions with everyone. jody gives him a hug and then leans up to kiss him on the temple. donna squeezes him so hard he swears his insides are flattened. 

after a few moments of getting caught up with everyone, sam sits him down at the table where the cake is. dean rubs his hands, ready to light the candle in it when sam makes this “uh-uh” sound. dean looks up at him in confusion when eileen brings over a pie with those large novelty number candles set into it. 42 sure was a year. 

dean sits there in the obligatory hot seat as everyone gathers around and sings him happy birthday. it’s awkward, it makes him blush and tears well up in his eyes, although nobody can really see it through the dimmed lights. and he looks around and his smile saddens a bit. he should have told cas to come with him. did sam not think to text jack?

he goes through the motions and cuts the first slice of the pie for himself and passes off the pastry to sam and eileen who take care of passing out the rest of it and the cake that’d been there. dean looks around, hoping cas and jack had been right behind him as sam brings him over a whiskey. it goes down ridiculously smooth. sam mentions he ran one last credit card scam for $3,000 whiskey for this. dean laughs and asks for another.

the night winds down fairly quickly, given it’s nearly three in the morning by the time everyone’s settled down into a less partying mood. dean ends up sitting outside with sam in some lawn chairs from walmart in sam’s cookie cutter back yard. eileen’s gone to bed and most everyone has gone home by then.

“you ever think we’d live this long?” sam asks.

“nope,” dean says without hesitation, “sammy, you died when you were twenty two. i died at twenty seven? twenty eight? god, i don’t even remember.”

“and those were just the first times,” sam says with an incredulous laugh.

“shit,” dean laughs with him, “yeah.”

“and we got out,” sam says. there’s a satisfaction in his voice that makes every single time dean died or did anything stupid for sam worth it. it’s a tone that dean knows means sam is happy. and that’s it, that was dean’s goal.

“we did,” dean agrees, taking another sip of the whiskey, “we beat hell, we beat heaven, we beat purgatory, we beat god.”

“kicked god’s ass,” sam affirms, “we get to choose what we want to do now. we write our own destiny now.”

dean reaches over and outstretches his glass. sam meets him halfway and they toast to that. dean watches sam pull his phone out and send off a quick text message. probably eileen telling him to go to bed.

they sit in silence for a while. and sam’s phone vibrates. dean watches him check it and not respond. trouble in paradise? he doubts it, but he doesn’t really know every single thing about sam anymore.

“i know you’re gonna tell me to shut up, but i do have to say, dean. thank you,” sam looks over at him.

“for?” dean asks.

“for everything, man,” sam has this look on his face like he’s going to cry, “you raised me. you were always there for me. im thirty eight, nearly sixteen years overdue if you hadn’t sold your soul to save me. i’m who i am because of you, and i like to think i’m in pretty good shape. and you, dean. i’m so proud of you. you’re the strongest person i’ve ever met. and i love you, and i’m happy that it was you that i got to have be my big brother.”

dean actually cries, but he turns around so that sam can’t see it. he composes himself in a second and turns back. he doesn’t have it in him to fight sam on the emotional distress this is causing him. instead he says, “thanks, sam. i’m glad i got to be your big brother, too.”

sam’s phone buzzes again. he checks it again and this time does respond. he sighs and looks over at dean again, “i gotta go. eileen says the bed is too cold.”

dean huffs a laugh and nods, “go fix that.”

sam nods and gets up. dean hears the door that leads back into the house slide open and then slide shut. and dean is left with himself at the end of it all. he sighs. he’s happy, he thinks.

and then he hears an unmistakable flutter. 

“dean!” he hears jack yell. it’s louder given it’s three in the morning and most people in this neighbourhood are asleep.

“i’m _so_ sorry,” jack says, rushing up to dean’s side, “we were planning to be there for the cake but it wasn’t ready and we kept trying to fix things-”

“fix what?” dean asks, curiously. he’s not mad.

“the-” jack stops short, looking behind dean. and dean realizes the missing piece of his birthday puzzle has to be behind him.

and he is. the angel castiel is standing behind dean on the cement part of the patio a few feet back, wearing one of dean’s old band tshirts under his trench coat. and there’s a book in his hands. 

“happy birthday, dean,” cas says, a little smile on his face.

dean gets up. his foot nearly kicks the whiskey glass he set down with the speed he gets up at. and he doesn’t waste any time in grabbing the sides of cas’ face and pressing the most heartfelt, loving, tender kiss dean has ever given anyone in his life. there’s a warmth that always seems to be radiating from cas and dean wants to stick to it like a leech.

when he pulls back, cas keeps the little smile on his face and hands dean the book. it’s a photo album, he realizes, once he takes it and opens it. there’s- there’s baby pictures of him there. things that were surely lost in the fire in lawrence. as he flips through the album, he finds pictures of him and sam growing up. things nobody had ever photographed before, he’s pretty sure. at one point he finds a picture of him at age twelve, lying on roof of the impala.

“cas,” dean asks, in completely disbelief, “where did you get these?”

“i did!” jack says coming from behind dean in an awkward hug from behind, “i can still tap into the power of god if i want to. it wasn’t hard to pop into different points of your life and just take a picture.”

dean turns back and pulls jack forward to pull him into a better hug as he laughs. that’s somehow the craziest thing he’s ever heard. 

“happy birthday, dad,” jack says. and he tenses against dean.

“did you just call me dad?” dean asks.

“no,” jack lies. 

“right,” dean says, a grin on his face that he looks up and notices that cas shares.

“well, it’s kinda creepy that you existed for a second at different points in my life, but i love it, jack. a walk down memory lane, shit and all. i love it, thank you, son” and he leans down to press a kiss against the top of jack’s head.

“this what kept you?” dean asks cas as jack lets go and says he’s heading inside.

cas nods and he says with a little shrug, “it seemed like a kind gesture. i sort of gave him points to land on. that way he didn’t land in the middle of a hunt or something. i’m sorry, dean.”

dean shakes his head and goes to set the book down on the chair he’d been sitting in and he walks back over to cas. where cas is standing, there’s a cement step between the cement patio area and the grass that dean and sam had been sitting in. it makes it so cas is a few inches taller than dean. 

dean finds himself turning around so that cas can come around him, head coming to rest on dean’s shoulder and his arms coming around dean’s middle.

“thought you were supposed to be sleeping,” dean says with a mocking tone.

“and miss your forty-second birthday?” cas asks, turning to press a kiss to the side of dean’s face. they look up at the sky and dean wonders how exactly he got there. there’s a feeling in his chest that he doesn’t understand, but he knows what it is. it’s peace, it’s happiness. 

“i have a speech prepared for you,” cas says softly. his hands tap at dean’s stomach and dean brings up his own hands to cover them.

“right, right. something about how my eyes glitter like the moon?” dean asks, his tone is still jokey.

“something like that,” cas says, “and moreso how you’ve been the world’s lifeline and how i’m so happy you’re finally thinking of yourself.”

dean’s heart sinks a little as cas continues.

“you know sam loves you, you know your friends love you. you know that i love you with the wrath of heaven behind me. and somehow that doesn’t compare to the happiness i feel now that i know that you finally love you.”

dean’s face goes completely red. the warmth is different from the warmth of the next kiss that cas places against his cheek again. 

“thank you,” he chokes out, voice breaking because he’s started crying again, “i... i don’t have heaven. but i love you with the power of a guy who fought god.”

cas laughs, “and won,” he adds.

dean’s blush comes down a little and he leans back just a little, so he can turn and meet cas full on in another kiss before turning back to look out at the normal neighbourhood sam’s found himself in. 

“do you think we could do something like this? cookie cutter house. you me and the kid?” dean asks.

“if you think you’re prepared to let the bunker go, i don’t see why not,” cas responds. 

the thought of turning the bunker’s lights out for good makes dean feel a certain kind of way. still, though. now it’s a thought that’s popped into his head. who knows. 

for now, he’s content to stand there with his angel, looking out at the other backyards, at the stars while their respective kids sleep in the house.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
